Head for the hills, honky-tonks and hallowed museum halls of Tennessee and refresh your inner playlist. Revel in the immortal yearnings of guitar-slinging hillbilly cats. Study the social movement known as the Funky Chicken. Plink the piano that plunked countless country hits onto the charts. Receive the gospel via choir loft or AM radio.

The prospect of reading another syllable about Michael Jackson would ordinarily make this reader thrust rusty nails into her eyeballs. But Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic Margo Jefferson offers a thought-provoking perspective that focuses more on the historical and less on the sleaze.

The Senate Judiciary Committee convenes next week to begin hearings on the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. Most of the summer has been spent getting ready for the confirmation "battle" as Hill staffers go through reams of paper on his every move for the past 50 years.